More than four decades ago the Gophers hired a 30-year-old head basketball coach who eventually got the school in trouble with the NCAA, but Bill Musselman revived a dormant program and long after he was gone Minnesota basketball was still benefitting from his fiery work.
Last week Rich Pitino, 30, took over a Gophers’ program again in need of revival and heavy lifting to make it one of the best in the country. His passion was obvious at his Friday news conference. “I believe this is one of the best jobs in college basketball,” he said even though many college coaches might roll their eyes at such a statement.
Pitino’s reputation is that of a tireless worker who may devote 18 hours per day to his task at Minnesota. He’s known as an effective recruiter and a coach who favors full court pressure defense. To be hired as a Big Ten basketball coach at 30 years old is a remarkable achievement.
Open the Musselman file and see similarities. Like Pitino, Musselman wasn’t the first choice to become the Gophers’ coach but once he arrived you knew this guy was serious —even fanatical— about his business.
Musselman worked long hours and prided himself on his own conditioning. When he wasn’t in the office or on the phone at home, he might be playing pickup basketball where a frustrated and immature Gophers’ coach could resort to fisticuffs. He hated to lose in any competition.
In the summer of 1971, Musselman’s first year in Minneapolis, he told a pumped up crowd at Williams Arena he planned on his Gophers winning the 1971-72 Big Ten championship. Skeptics in the audience remembered that Minnesota had last been conference champs in 1937, and the 1970-71 Gophers finished 5-9 in the Big Ten.
Musselman inherited some talent on his roster in 1971 but knew he needed more. It didn’t take long to sign up junior college stars Clyde Turner and Ron Behagen. They and others formed a roster that won the Big Ten title in 1972, just as predicted.
It was more than recruiting that made the Gophers a winner, though. Musselman employed a zone defense that regularly held opponents to point totals in the 50s. On offense Minnesota was a disciplined team willing to hold the ball for long stretches to find a high percentage shot.
Musselman was a motivator who could be so crazed to win he talked to his players prior to the first practice in October of 1971 about beating Big Ten powerhouse Ohio State. Never mind that there would be no game between the schools until winter.
The desire to motivate his team and pack Williams Arena resulted in Musselman’s use of a pregame ball handling drill set to music. As the Gopher players performed 25 minutes before tipoff, nearly all the seats in the arena were filled with hand clapping, foot stomping fans.
In less than a year Musselman transformed the Gophers on the national college basketball map. During his career at Minnesota the Gophers had Big Ten finishes of first, second, sixth and third. The team was so popular games were regular sellouts, and fans who couldn’t get in the arena paid to watch on a large screen in the next door hockey arena.
Musselman left the Gophers after the 1975 season with NCAA infractions brewing and the bad taste of the infamous 1972 Minnesota-Ohio State brawl on his resume. But he had the program rolling in recruiting, victories and at the box office from the start of his assignment in Minneapolis, and that momentum carried over for years and contributed directly to the success of the two coaches who followed him, Jim Dutcher and Clem Haskins.
If Pitino can duplicate the “Good Mussy” and not the “Bad Mussy,” it will be déjà vu in Dinkytown.
Worth Noting
Rich Pitino said he welcomes the idea of the Gophers playing nonconference games against Louisville, the team coached by his father, Rick Pitino. “I would love to, if he would be willing to do it. We were going to do it at FIU, and hopefully we can do something here. I think it would be great. It would be fun to go against him head-to-head.”
Although Rich Pitino didn’t say it, the game is something the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority should be looking at for 2016, the first year of the new Minneapolis Vikings stadium. A crowd of 20,000 to 30,000 could be likely, and installing a basketball setup in the new covered stadium would be a trial run for hosting NCAA Tournament games.
Pitino has already contacted Minnesota high school recruits including Apple Valley junior point guard Tyus Jones. He plans to have individual meetings with Gophers players this week.
The April 8 issue of Sports Illustrated said Minnesota natives Nate Wolters and Mike Muscala didn’t help themselves with their performances in the NCAA Tournament. Wolters, the South Dakota State point guard from St. Cloud Tech, “got destroyed” against the quickness and long arms of Michigan defenders in the tourney, according to an NBA executive.
Muscala, the Bucknell center from Roseville, has talent but an NBA executive quoted in the magazine said, “You can see his skills. But he needs to develop. If I were taking him, I’d try to get him to play in Europe for a couple of years.”
S.I. predicted the Timberwolves, drafting at No. 8 in the first round, will choose Indiana shooting guard Victor Oladipo.
The Vikings will play a home preseason game against the Titans at Mall of America Field on either Thursday, August 29, or Friday, August 30. A game on August 29 will be the same date the football Gophers play UNLV at TCF Bank Stadium.
A Vikings’ spokesman said the team’s date will be finalized within a couple of weeks. The Vikings’ August 25 preseason game at San Francisco will be nationally televised by NBC’s Sunday Night Football.
Gophers’ offensive coordinator Matt Limegrover said he thinks former Gophers’ quarterback Max Shortell is home in Kansas still deciding where he will finish his college career. Shortell, who would have been a valuable junior for the Gophers next fall, decided to transfer from Minnesota after the season ended last year.
Limegrover, who used to weigh 400 pounds, is now at about 230 and coaching with renewed energy.
At the Minnesota Football Clinic on Friday night newscaster Randy Shaver thanked high school and college coaches for fund-raising $121,000 for his cancer research foundation. The “Tackle Cancer” promotion involved 150 high schools and two colleges in the state. The Gophers will participate this year at the San Jose State game at TCF Bank Stadium.
The clinic, a three day event led by the Minnesota Football Coaches Association and held at the Double Tree Park Plaza in St. Louis Park, reported a record attendance of over 1,300, according to an e-mail from Ron Stolski, executive director of the MFCA.
At the clinic Minnetonka High School coach Dave Nelson was given the Tom Mahoney Man of the Year Award by the MFCA. “Tom Mahoney was one of the founders of the Minnesota Football Coaches Association, and an inspirational, tireless leader of it for decades,” Stolski wrote in an e-mail. “The Tom Mahoney award is presented to an MFCA member who represents the best in our association. A person who devotes leadership and enthusiasm for and energy to the efforts of the MFCA. Dave Nelson epitomizes all that the award represents.”
St. Thomas football coach Glenn Caruso said his Tommies will return “more kids than any top five” Division III program in the country. Among his top 60 players last year, 35 were freshmen and sophomores. Caruso said the Tommies might be ranked No. 2 in the nation prior to the start of next season.
St. Thomas begins the first of seven spring practices next Sunday. The Tommies, who have 91 Minnesotans on the roster, return nine starters on offense and six on defense.
Twins’ closer Glen Perkins, who earned his second save of the season yesterday in a 4-3 win over the Orioles, has yet to give up a hit in three innings over three games. The Twins, now 4-2, have swept their two opening series.
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